


Colors in the Darkness

by AlexandraDanino (AlekPixi)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Car Accidents, Dimensional Traveling, The Power of Imagination, the power of belief
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlekPixi/pseuds/AlexandraDanino
Summary: When homely nobody Rowan Nightingale gets hit by a car, she doesn't die, but instead is chosen to become an Auran - a being who can make anything happen, on three conditions: she has to be able to imagine it, believe it, and then create it. Taken under her mentor's wing, she travels to other dimensions and learns to harness the power of her imagination, slowly growing more confident in herself. But dark forces are lurking in the shadows, and who better to manipulate than a young, naïve Auran such as her? Soon, Rowan must fight her inner demons - quite literally - in order to save the dimensions from being destroyed. But can you truly believe that you are stronger than the darkest, most evil force in the entire multiverse, when all your life you have believed you weren't worth anything at all?





	Colors in the Darkness

It all began because she had forgotten to buy eggplants.  
The rain was pouring down over New York City, and it was as though you could almost taste thunder in the air, while Rowan Nightingale’s feet tap-tap-tapped on the wet sidewalk, her yellow raincoat shining like a beacon in the crowd of people. Even though it was raining hard, the streets were filled with dark umbrellas as the citizens underneath hurried along.  
It had begun in the morning, as the man on the news had predicted that the rain would continue for the rest of the week. Rowan had turned it off and left her cornflakes on the dining table in favor of looking for her raincoat. Her phone was in her backpack, periodically beeping to remind her of the single unread text message form her father, announcing that he would be home late again today and that it would be nice if she would leave some dinner in the fridge for him.  
This was normal in the Nightingale household. Both of Rowan’s parents worked hard, long hours; her mother was a Junior Director for an electronics chain and currently away on business, and her father was a stockbroker, leaving early in the morning before his daughter woke up and coming home long after her bedtime. Rowan’s parents were dedicated to their jobs, and thus, they seldom had time for their only child.  
Rowan started the dishwasher and took a glance at her computer before leaving for school; there was a message from the guild she played World of Warcraft with, but other than that, nothing.  
On her way to school, a couple of classmates passed by her, but nobody seemed to notice her. She raised her hand and almost called out to them, but then decided against it, letting her hand nestle in the pocket of her coat again. Rowan knew that none of them would wait for her to catch up in the rain.  
Her shoes and socks were soaked by the time she reached her classroom, but fortunately nobody noticed the little, wet sounds that came from her footsteps, since everyone were loudly yelling and goofing off, as was usual in the 8th grade. The teacher had yet to show up, and students were running between classrooms, meeting up with friends in total chaos. Rowan edged past a group of gossiping girls and sat in the back of the room in her usual spot by the window. She took off her shoes, hoping they would dry during the day.  
When lunchbreak finally arrived, some of the 9th graders came into the classroom. The tough guys from Rowan’s class were immediately crowding around them, doing their best to get in with the group, and it seemed as though the 9th graders humored them for now. Rowan ignored them, even though it was difficult with as loud as they were, and hoped they wouldn’t notice her like last week or the week before that. Instead, she pulled out a book she had brought from home, and started eating her lunch while attempting to read.  
Unfortunately, she was not as lucky as she had hoped. A hand came down from above and grabbed the book, tearing it from her grasp, and as she looked up, she stared into the dull eyes of a tall, gangly guy with short, mousy-brown hair. There was a bright red pimple on his cheek.  
“Little Red Riding Slut, how nice to see you,” he drawled, reaching for one of her pigtails and pulling on it. “What’re you reading today, huh?”  
None of your business, she thought, but she kept her mouth shut, not daring to actually say it out loud. Her eyes desperately sought her classmates, but they all pretended not to see what was going on – one of them looked at her nervously for a short moment, but was then wise enough to look the other way again. She knew there was no help to get there; none of them would risk getting caught up in this, not when it was the 9th graders. She understood; she probably wouldn’t have dared to, either.  
“Hello, Earth to the whale?” the guy continued, kicking at her feet under the table. He then looked down and pulled a face.  
“Ew, what the hell, that’s why it smells like wet feet in here!” he yelled, loudly enough for everyone to hear and turn their attention towards Rowan, although not in the way she had hoped. The crowd of 9th graders and their lackeys started yelling, pinching their noses. Rowan pursed her lips; she knew that the classroom already smelled like old lunchboxes and puberty-ridden tweens, and that they were just looking for an excuse to humiliate her, but still, her ears turned red with shame. If she said anything, it would just get worse. She had tried that before, when the bullying had first begun, years ago, and quickly discovered that it would pass quicker if she just didn’t say anything at all.  
Another boy, with a tiny face in a very round head, walked over and picked up her shoes between his thumbs and pointers.  
“I say we wash them for her. How about in the toilets? Or will they just smell more like shit, then?”  
“They already do, it won’t make much of a difference!” another one grunted, and was met by approving laughs from the group. Rowan felt a knot forming in her stomach as they walked out of the classroom with her shoes, and she stayed back, fixing the pigtail that one of them had ruined. Her hair was about the same color as carrots, and she was on the chubby side, which her tormentors found endless fun in using against her.  
The tall one, who had started the scene, had thrown her book in the trash on the way out. She fished it out of the trash, relieved that it had narrowly missed landing in some tuna salad. Some of the pages had crinkled, and she smoothed them out as she sat at her table again. She could feel her classmates’ gazes upon her, but knew that they would all turn away the moment she looked up.  
She knew all of this, because it wasn’t the first time it had happened. Far from it.  
Ten minutes before the bell would ring for class, she got up from her desk and hurried to the bathrooms – she had to take long steps in order to avoid the puddles in the hall – and just as she had expected, she found her shoes. They were in the sink rather than the toilet, with the faucet still running. They were now even more soaked than before; the water was going directly into her right shoe, while the left was just floating upside-down. They dripped onto her socks as she picked them out. She had feared that the guys would actually throw them into the toilet.  
“Well, rather my shoes than my head,” she mumbled, pulling toilet paper from the roll and stuffing it into her shoes. “And couldn’t they come up with something better than Little Red Riding Slut? It’s getting old.”  
She walked back to her classroom, furious for not being brave enough to defend herself.

Rowan’s shoes were still sopping wet when she returned home, and she left small puddles in the shape of her feet as she walked across the linoleum floors on her way to her room, where she changed into dry clothes before turning on her computer. None of her friends or guild members had sent her any messages while she had been at school. She was a pretty decent gamer, both on the computer and her PlayStation, and her closest friends were those she had on the internet because of it. She was grateful to have any friends at all, really – it sometimes stung when she saw her classmates walk home arm in arm while she trailed behind, not having anyone to talk to.  
After taking a quick glance at her homework and deciding it was easy enough to wait until after dinner, she started pulling ingredients out of the fridge, only to discover there were no more eggplants left. She needed those for the recipe, and she didn’t want to start planning all over again, so she sighed and resigned herself to her fate of being in the rain again. If she left now, she would make it just in time before the market on the corner closed – otherwise she would have to walk even further, meaning more soaked socks.

The sky was dark and threatening as thunderclouds loomed overhead, booming as she ran along the sidewalk while the cars were stuck in traffic, beeping and honking futilely at each other. The streets were filled once again, as it was around the time where most people got off work, and Rowan got plenty of elbows to the ribs and only narrowly managed to dodge the tip of an umbrella almost poking her eye out.  
Her phone vibrated in her bag, and she took a quick glance at it while raindrops made the screen blurry. It was a text from her dad, asking if she had had a good day at school. She was about to smile sarcastically – her parents didn’t really know that she had no friends and was bullied – when she was shoved by a large man in a suit, almost toppling her over.  
She managed to get back up, and realized she was finally no longer surrounded by people. Her yellow raincoat was a light against the dark asphalt underneath her. The sound of traffic was everywhere, and a lightning flashed across the sky.  
She briefly wondered why there weren’t any people around her, but then a man yelled something indistinguishable at her. It was only a few seconds later that she finally realized what was wrong, as the sound of a car horn came closer; she was in the middle of the empty crosswalk, and the stoplight was staring menacingly red at her.  
Tires whined against the wet pavement as she spun around, and she instinctively lifted her arms just before the car hit her.  
A sharp light made her squeeze her eyes shut – either a lightning or the headlights, she mused, and she worried for a second that she wouldn’t get to text her dad back – and then everything turned to black.


End file.
